Will we ever have a high fantasy AAA MMO with thrilling combat mechanics and no soul crushing resource grinding

Well I understand that too, it's just that most gaming conventions just don't lend themselves to not being a grind. I'm not not saying games can't be fun and have "thrilling combat mechanics". I was just answering your question "and no soul crushing resource grinding", and it is no. Any game, no matter how good it is, will not devolve into that.
Given the systems in place of games, strength is determined by levels and equipment, right? These things would need to be obtained by challenges set forth by the game whether it be in the killing of monsters or gathering resources in some sort of set progression. That is a grind. If you remove the need for progression and it becomes random, and not fun.

I really want a MMO fantasy game with Chivalry's combat mechanics. A Skyrim or Witcher-esque world where combat is more engaging than just spamming skills.

Legion is good, I'm enjoying it right now, but let's try not to kid ourselves, ok?

FFXIV bores me.

But WoW makes me incredibly angry.

But GW2 makes me extremely sad.

Fuck.

>I really want a MMO fantasy game with Chivalry's combat mechanics

Gross.

doesnt exist, there's an mmo out there for you regardless of what setting your interested in but it comes with the soul crushing resource grind or terrible combat.

MMOs are dead. Not even VR could save them.

literally how

the point of an mmo is to always have something to do, aka grind
If you dont want to grind, you dont play mmos.

I wish there was an mmo that had a perma death mechanic in it.

Would make players think about the choices they made while adventuring.

Some sort of high fantasy setting where playing classes like priests/wizard require actual studying of books in game or something to deter the overflow of said classes.

Martial classes would require the memorization of combos to be effective in combat. With a variety of weapons to perform different combos.

Too bad its never gonna happen.

We can't have an alternative to grinding yet until someone provides a good solution. What should the game be about if it's not grinding?

Fine Im not saying remove grinding completely, obviously, Im just saying there should be an MMO thats as much fun to PLAY as it is to "BE" your character

In a perfect world, a virtual reality MMO where you can walk up to another player and say "Hey, theres a secret dungeon this way and I need another person to kill the dragon inside" and the other guy says "Hey why the fuck not", you can hear each others voices, and you go forth slay said dragon in the some action RPG style combat, and after you get the loot, you kill the guy you set up to help you and take his half

That takes me back to the old days of lineage 2. God that shit was fun in the day.

A dark souls or dragons dogma mmo would be cool.

I just hope they chsnge the system so there is no min-maxing or at least make it that if you play the game without knowledge beforehand u aren't fucked

Perma death mmo already exist and it's trash. No one wants to progress and work hard for something that disappears in an instant

Yeah, it's called playing a tabletop RPG with friends.

Even in shitty mobile phone rougelike games you retain something of importance. Retards can't even get that right.

What about an MMO that isn't just combat, with maybe resource gathering and crafting? What about an MMO that is about maintaining a job in a town/city, like a vintner, hair stylist, blacksmith, etc., and the game itself is a living world separate from our own? You could even run for office, or depending on the setting, become a leader some other way, like assassinating the duke and shapeshifting into him. The major problem would be keeping all roles fun to do and let people do what they want, while also making roles difficult enough that there is a high skill ceiling, and there is a reason to go to one blacksmith over another, for instance. And not make usurpation/war/assassination too easy so as not to have a constant world upheaval.

In any case it would be a huge undertaking but that's what I always imagined an MMO to be, not the typical "holy trinity do dungeons get loot" thing we have now that people seem to have locked onto.

MMorpgs/WoW clones require holy trinity and loot progression.
Runescape did many things you mentioned but its was 99% grinding.

The main issue with the MMO is it tries to be everything and ultimately can't. It tries to be both a singleplayer and multiplayer experience at the same time, and ultimately one of the two wins. FFXIV focuses on dungeons and a multiplayer experience, while Runescape focuses on a singleplayer experience. It's possible to merge the two, but it's usually not done well and the previously mentioned occurs.

Nah, shouldn't be permadeath. You should just lose a level or two.

Also I agree with that guy about making wizards rare to where when you see one you go WOW. I always thought they should be 1 in 10k RNG on character roll, but having to study shit is alright too.

I think a good way to go about it is to focus specifically on the multiplayer end and just have a soft mechanic for people who want to solo.

Virtually all the content of GW1 was designed for a full party and they just had stupid computer allies that you could substitute slots with for the longest time. It'd take longer and it'd be harder than having half-competent players but it was doable, and later on in the lifetime they gave players the ability to simulate play with multiple characters at once.

Like I said, usually. GW1 is probably the only example that I could think of, but I didn't play many early MMO's after getting sucked into Runescape.

Man, half the reason MMO's are dying is because all the info is already out there. No more relying on players, just look it up in a wiki.

If it's a secret dungeon then how would they know about it?

If they do know about it and are telling other people, then isn't it not a secret anymore?

You can't really have any secrets with the internet anymore. That's not a fault of MMOs. It's a fault of humanity being too socially connected nowadays.

Without the grind people would just rush through content and quit.
The sad truth is that MMOs need a grind for the sake of player retention.